If this has been covered already, please let me know, but I just came across this news story:
The Pentagon says it is rewriting the document that called homosexuality a mental disorder.
A Defense Department spokesman says homosexuality "should not have been characterized as a mental disorder" in an appendix of procedures for dealing with disabled service members.
Lt. Col Jeremy Martin says a clarification will be issued within days.
Lawmakers and medical professionals were among those demanding the change in a how-to outline of discharge policies for service members with physical disabilities.
A section on defects listed homosexuality alongside mental retardation and personality disorders.
Martin says the revision will have no "practical impact" because the paper listed factors that don't constitute a physical disability and in his statement, Martin says, "homosexuality of course does not."
More below the fold...
From yesterday's
WaPo:
The 1996 Pentagon document, which had been recertified as "current" three years ago, had listed homosexuality as a mental disorder alongside mental retardation, impulse control disorders and personality disorders.
The American Psychiatric Association, responsible for a definitive listing of mental health classifications, declassified homosexuality as a mental disorder in 1973.
...snip...
Changing the classification "will be consistent with the scientific consensus on homosexuality and mental health," said Nathaniel Frank, a researcher at the Center for the Study of Sexual Minorities in the Military at the University of California at Santa Barbara.
The center recently found and released the 1996 document.
"I'm glad the language has been changed," said Steve Ralls, spokesman for the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, which opposes limits on gays in the military.
Ralls said he believed it was a simple oversight by the Pentagon, not malice, that the document continued to list homosexuality as a mental disorder.
The Servicemembers Legal Defense Network said the rate of troops discharged under the "don't ask, don't tell" policy had fallen by about 40 percent since the beginning of U.S. military operations following the September 11 attacks on the United States.
"There is no good reason for keeping the ban in place and there's every good reason for repealing it," Ralls said. "It's discriminatory and robbing the military of talented men and women who want to serve. It's unnecessary. We've seen bans lifted among our closest allies. In Iraq and Afghanistan, Americans are serving alongside openly gay British troops."
Legislation in the House of Representatives to lift the restrictions on homosexuals in the military appears to have little chance of passage in the Republican-controlled Congress. There is no similar Senate bill.
Oversight? Just like how increasing veterans benefits have been an "oversight." Just how properly equipping soldiers was an "oversight." Just how an exit strategy was an "oversight."
I've had enough of this. We can't take much more.
How do you gloss over a categorization of an entire group of people as defective? How do you take concerns that have been voiced before on the issue and ignore them until now?
I am glad this change is taking place, but it is far too late, and indicative of a greater problem within the archaic military mindset.
Do any military Kossacks have thoughts on the issue? I will be doing more background research and hope to post an update soon, but I was thinking that there might be individuals here who could relate their experiences with this policy. Is it ever discussed? And how the hell can they state very clearly now that there is no 'problem' with homosexual soldiers, and yet continue to deny them their right to serve their country.
Will the insanity ever stop?
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Update:
And in case there was any doubt, despite open discrimination against individuals based on their sexual preference...the U.S. Military is a "model employer":
Labor and Defense Department officials celebrated the federal government's support of National Guardsmen and reservists and the government's role as a "model employer" at a ceremony here today.
"The message to America, to employers, to Guardsmen and reservists is your government is a model employer -- your agencies, your secretaries," Thomas F. Hall, assistant secretary of defense for reserve affairs, said.
Today's ceremony concluded an initiative to have all 16 cabinet secretaries sign an Employer Support of the Guard and Reserve statement of support. The heads of all 80 federal agencies also have signed the statement, Hall said.
The statement signed is a 5-Star Statement of Support for the Guard and Reserve, meaning that the highest support criteria established by the Committee for Employer Support of the Guard and Reserve have been met. Those criteria include an employer's willingness to sign a public statement of support, compliance with the Uniformed Services Employment and Re-Employment Rights Act and adopting policies that go "above and beyond" what's required by law in supporting Guardsmen and reservists.